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Producer Aditi Anand is a true multi-hyphenate. Not only is she one of the petitioners fighting for equal rights for the LGBTQIA+ community along with her partner Susan Dias, but she is also involved in the stray dogs court case that has divided the country. All this, while running Neelam Studios with Pa Ranjith and supporting socially conscious films like Mari Selvaraj’s Tamil films. bison memory
Aditi has a lot to achieve, so she describes this year as ‘fantastic’. In a candid and reflective interview with Hindustan Times, he discussed everything from the rise of hyper-masculinity in cinema to the locker room talks that he has to endure behind the scenes while working in the film industry. But most of all, she talks about her long-standing love affair with cinema and storytelling. Part.
An untold story needs to be told
Aditi studied history in college, not in the way we were taught in school, but by discovering stories that she says were ‘lost to the academic world.’ The producer explains, “This sparked my interest in making non-fiction documentary and combining it with fictional filmmaking.”
And thus his career began, he worked in films like Paan Singh Tomar, No One Killed Jessica and Chillar Party. Soon, he founded Little Red Car Films and produced The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir (2018) with Stars in His Eyes. Bow. “The film did well abroad, but flopped and burned out in India. It was becoming difficult to politicize anything in Bombay,” she muses.
Rajnikanth Factor
The same year, Dhanush produced Kaala, directed by Pa Ranjith and starring his then father-in-law. Rajinikanth. Aditi had gone to the theater to support her lead actor and unexpectedly she was ‘shocked’ by it. She says, “I messaged Ranjith to tell him how much I enjoyed the film and we hit it off. He was previously trying to produce five films with the filmmakers, and while my initial interest was to work under his direction, I saw Mari Selvaraj’s Pariyaram Perumal and just had to produce his next film with Ranjith.”
And so, a hint at the dotted line pre-COVID led to films like Writer (2021), J Baby (2024), and now, Bison (2025) being made under Sapphire Studios. “I had the pleasure of working with Ranjith and Maari. It’s very easy to make a film that you know will make good films. But it is very difficult to make films like this,” she says of their slate. In fact, while promoting Bison, Mari was also constantly asked why he keeps making ‘ethnic films’, and Aditi has a theory on why the subject makes people so uncomfortable.
Amitabh Bachchan’s Vijay Deenanath Chauhan
There is a famous dialogue from Amitabh Bachchan says that his name is Vijay Dinanath Chauhan. If he had said Vijay Mandal, people would have called it a caste film. I think it bothers people because caste is everywhere, and for people who have grown up in urban cities, there is an illusion of living in a post-caste society. And yet, if you pay attention, polite racism is everywhere,” says Aditi, pondering why this topic makes people tense.
The creator also reflects on how ‘no matter how aware we are’, many people’s privilege depends on being blind to racism. “Ranjeet and Mari are not even calling people; they are simply telling the stories of their lives. The fact that the film’s champion comes from an oppressed community makes people uncomfortable. You expect purity from Dalit-Bahujan artists, but life is not like that, and neither is art. It is incredible that people like them and Yet, Neeraj Ghaywan has managed to tell his stories,” she says.
heterosexual, masculine, heterosexual dominance
And while these filmmakers have managed to break barriers, Aditi reflects on how many other stories that are not ‘heterosexual, masculine, heteronormative’ have gone untold. She says, “I don’t think cinema is a medium of morality, but I believe it can be a medium of change. And that can only happen through representation, where people are allowed to tell their stories.”
Aditi also adds that Uday is rising Ticket prices don’t help matters, he said, “Cinema used to be a place where families were attracted to theaters. But today, the low-income family can’t afford the ticket prices. Now, hyper-male cinemas are the only way to attract people who can afford to see movies, which are groups of men who buy single tickets.”
Aditi says there is an issue in the film industry that needs to be addressed at a systemic level. “Hindi cinema is a little more progressive in this regard, but South cinema is sorely lacking in terms of women’s representation. There are very few of us behind the scenes. Our focus is often on sex.” Harassment, but for a woman to survive in this industry, is at the other end of the spectrum.
When asked to elaborate, she says, “When a woman works here, she has to go through exclusionary bias and locker room jokes, which makes it more difficult. I’ve faced it too; they don’t talk to a man the way they talk to me. You can see their minds being blown when they see a woman across the table. The only solution to this is structural change,” she concludes.
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